COOPERATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION: UNDERSTANDING INSTITUTIONAL COOPERATION POLICIES IN DISTANCE EDUCATION BY USING TWO DIFFERENT PUBLIC POLICY FRAMEWORKS

Over the last decade, most universities are engaged in developing distance courses and programs up to the point that they are now mostly considered as dual-mode universities because they offer both traditional and distance learning courses.

This presentation takes inspiration from an original perspective regarding the main ideas behind the struggle of the actors who try to influence the different stages of an institutional policy process. The implementation of these new practices is analyse from the point of view of an institutional policy by mean of the case study of the dual-mode policy of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) in Canada.

To this end, it draws inspiration from two different perspectives of the public policy analysis: the cognitive approach and the actors’ dynamics approach.

These two perspectives of the public policy analysis are described in global to explain why and how they can be useful in institutional policy analysis process, when we adjust them to an institutional context. First, it means to consider a university policy related to institutional cooperation (in this case the blended learning university policy) as an institutional policy in the same perspective as we would do for a public policy. Second, it brings us to shape analysis tools that are inspired from two different - and considered as complementary - approaches, the first is related to the cognitive approach of the public policy analysis and the other is based on the actors' dynamic approach. Third, it means to use the first approach to reassemble the baseline of the policy and the other to redraw the currents that cross the policy process of this institutional policy and the struggle of the actors.

This presentation takes inspiration from an original perspective developed during a doctoral research project regarding the main ideas behind the struggle of the actors who try to influence the different stages of the policy process and, in this case, the «re-emergence» of the institutional policy. It also sheds light over the actions taken and not taken by those in charge of implementing this institutional policy.